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It’s early morning 6:30 am in Brussels. It’s about minus 4 outside, but cosy in here. Didn’t sleep at all because of some Spanish girl who had too much last night and kept half the dorm room up. Waiting for breakfast, then I head to Paris to get my flight to Iceland. Where it is around 5 degrees and pissing down with rain. Only in my worst luck could Iceland be warmer than the Benelux.
Spent Chrissie with Caro and family, had fun, froze, and drank far too much wine which her brother in law brought back from Vietnam. Strong stuff with an acetone taste that left a not-quite-hangover. Now I’m going to have a snooze before breakfast is served, and will be in contact again after Jan 5th.
Bon noel, bonne annee, drink one for me.
Saw Australia last night – what a nostalgia fest. I almost burst into applause everytime I saw another Aussie face. Who else spotted John Jarrat at the end. I’ve been away from home for too long.
Reading: Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything – a laymans book about the greatest discoveries in science, really quite funny, actually. Who knew scientists were such a bizarre bunch. Take the attidude of deep-sea decompression researcher J.B.S. Haldane towards the effects of the ‘bends’ and his self-experimentation:
“Collapsed lungs were a routine hazard. Perforated eardrum were quite common, too: but, as Haldane reassuringly noted in one of his eassays, ‘the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment.” p301.
Hey, who wouldn’t want to give up their hearing for a neat party trick! 
Seriously, I’m beginning to wonder how it is that men once believed that they had the rationality and women had the childishness.
Watching: Deathproof – was expecting it to be terrible, but you gotta love Zoe Bell, that is one cool Kiwi. The film has absolutely no point to it, but that’s fine. Brick Lane – rather beautiful, important movie, which doesn’t end as many of these kind of movies do, so was very refreshing.
So much for Strasbourg
So, my big disaster of the day, is that after carefully spending the day before packing, doing my laundry, scrubbing my room and the house, laying my clothes out, waking up at 5am, being ready on time, and even arriving at the train station 10 minutes before the departure (usually it’s 2 minutes and I have to run), I missed my train to Strasbourg this morning. Why? Well, I hadn’t bothered to check if the train departed from Lille-Flandres Station (domestic trains, usually) or Lille-Europe (international trains). I suppose my Strasbourg train was actually on its way somewhere else – it’s very close to Germany. I realised at about 6 minutes before departure and ran as best I could in tight jeans and a bung knee to Lille Europe, to miss my train by 1 minute. Fuck.
Of course, the ticket was non-refundable, and, being France, the ticket I originally paid 30 euros for, three months ago, now costs 129 euros, so there I was, not going to Strasbourg. Defeated, stinking and sweating like a pig in my snow jacket (remember, I was on my way to Iceland), I had to stumble home and go back to bed.
All is not lost for the whole trip – instead of going from Strasbourg to Brussels, and then Brussels to Caroline’s house for Christmas, I’ll just go straight to Carolines on Christmas eve (from Caroline’s I go to the airport for Iceland); I’ve already considered going to spend Tuesday night in Bruges (it’s in Belgium, boom cha) – technically, the reason I wanted to go to Strasbourg was to see the Christmas markets, and Bruges is very Christmassy at the moment, I’m sure. I can drink mulled wine anywhere. I could totally kick myself up the arse, though.
Baggio riots continued
Anyway, Friday was my last ‘working’ day; in inverted commas as, a) I only have one class on Fridays, b) I arrived at the metro station to be told that all the metro was closed down, c) I had to walk to Baggio, and I arrived half an hour late for my one-hour long class, and d) there was only one student. But, it was informative; the one student was a kid who loves to talk, and he happily described the morning events to me:
- the metro had been closed down because of fires at Baggio, under the metro line. This occured exactly five minutes before I arrived at my metro station to go to work (!)
- there had been three more fires, and when firemen had arrived, they’d been pelted with stones and bricks, so they turned around and promptly left the fires – and the firebugs – to themselves
- aerosol cans had been thrown into the fires to cause mini-explosions
- more kids were arrested, more glass was smashed, more wheelie bins set alight, the chicken wire barricades destroyed, and a public telephone destroyed. No cars were set alight this time, though this may have more to do with people now parking their cars far far away from Baggio.
From inside Baggio looking towards the carnage.
Yep, its the end of the poor bus shelter.
Baggio door with Anarchist posters ripped off.
Melted plastic (from Wheelie bins) and newspapers on the road.
Remains of a wheelie bin.
Barricade smashed against bin.
The bus shelter across the road.
Remains of another wheelie bin.
Where they got the bricks to throw at the firemen.
Scorchmarks on the Baggio main entrance.
Police safety barriers - or whats left of them.
On another note, if you’d like an idea of what Baggio normally looks like without the carnage, have a look at the Google street view which was taken on a pleasant summers day …
Lycee Baggio on Boulevard d’Alsace, Lille, Google Street View
Can you spot the whole and complete bus shelters? The lack of scorch marks? The lack of mounds of melted wheelie bin in the road?
Well, it’s school holidays now, hopefully this will fizzle over the winter break. While it’s been exciting, it is getting a little tiresome having only one student in a class, or even more so, hanging around in the teacher’s room waiting to see if any will turn up.
Meanwhile, I’ll be focusing on my trip ahead.
Reading: F I N A L L Y finished the Twilight books, what a drag, but felt like I had to slog through them since I’d started. Here’s hoping the rest of the movies are going to be better than the books, as the first film was. Now starting on A Thousand Splendid Suns, to be followed by something incredibly literary, just to clean my head of tacky teenage vampire novels.
Watching: Quantum of Solace (somebody finally released a decent screener version); The Birdcage / La Cage Aux Folles - that is, the French original (1978), the American remake (1996) starring Robin Williams and Gene Hackman, and a recent theatrical adaptation at the Playhouse in London; and Brick Lane, just to round off the London trip.
Hanging Around Lille
After my Toussaint travelling marathon (Paris, Limoges, Belgium, Ypres, Antwerpen … all in fourteen days), I’ve spent the last few weeks venturing no further than the Lille Metro will allow.
An interesting exhibition I attended was an art students market in Roubaix (a suburb of Lille):
La Condition Publique a Roubaix
Random artwork.
There was plenty of general funkiness which Jodie would probably appreciate the most. It was all quite reasonably priced too. The exhibition was an interesting concept: 24 hours of non-stop art manufacture, with the artists camping out in their respective stalls, producing throughout the night. By the time I arrived, about hour 19, they were bleary eyed and sedated, but their stalls were full of interesting pieces. I was looking for Christmas presents, but really didn’t see anything that suited anyone; there was plenty I would’ve bought for myself if I were setting up house in France, but the shipping costs back home would’ve ruined the point of buying students work at bargain basement prices. Here’s hoping there’s similar events back home when I do have to set up house end of next year.
Random artwork.
Banksy has clearly had a lot of influence on young urban artists: every second artist was doing Banksy-style stencil art.
Random art.
Romanian prices for Financial Crisis!!!
London
Determined to do something more exciting with my last weekend before Christmas, I booked last minute tickets to London (as in, 11pm Thursday I decided to go, and 1pm Friday, after work, I was on a bus). God I love how you can just do that here.
After the hassle-free Schengen border crossings between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, I’d totally forgotten that the UK actually does customs and immigration before you can enter – luckily I remembered my ‘Titre de Sejour’ – my French residency card. I’d always wondered why these cards were such a hassle to organise, but now I understand: they are essentially one page passports, for use within the European Union.
On a side note, although it’s a four hour flight away, Iceland is a Schengen country, so I probably won’t need to take my passport for that either. I am intensely jealous of all you EU residents, you got it made.
I could’ve taken the train (1 1/2 hours) instead of the bus (6 hours) except the former cost 120euroes ONE WAY for a last-minute ticket and the bus was 60euroes RETURN. Quarter of the price, who cares about 3 times the time?
The extra time for the bus is due to the delays of customs/immigration, boarding/disboarding the P&O Ferry at Calais. Interesting experience, and a good oppourtunity to buy cheap alcohol before arriving in London:
Sunset over Calais.
Packing the car with French alcohol.
I’d heard about this: the British come over on the ferry, stock up on cheap booze (no tax on French wine, hell yeah) and drive back again. This fella had every space in his hatch filled with cases, and no luggage. Planning a party?
No ... its not ... it cant be ... its following me!
It seems I can’t escape it … BANROCK! It’s here! Only it’s actually called Rose here instead of ‘White Shiraz’, seems they don’t bother with the toffee name. It was one of a few wines available (duty free, of course) on the ferry in boxes, so clearly it’s popular. They also had Penfolds, Hardys, Lindemans (no, not the guy from Heroes), and a few other South Australian wines. In fact, they dominated the selection. I bought a bottle of Hardys cab sav because it was the cheapest cab sav available – I know, Hardys is an American company now, but I couldn’t resist buying a bottle of alcohol that is marked ‘Reynella, South Australia’ while on board a boat crossing the English channel on the other side of the world. Oh, and just to piss you off just a little bit more: it’s cheaper here.
And, it appears, they save the best for the Brits: normally most Hardys reds are bloody awful, but perhaps because it was chilled, the bottle I bought was really rather nice. Either that or I was drunk too quickly to notice. Or I’m used to the somewhat more hideous French wines.
British Museum
British Museum in the rain.
Really, the only touristy thing I did was visit the British Museum. It’s one of the more important museums in the world, but I have overdosed on Egyptian and classical artwork at other museums, so I found the modern art and the non-European artefacts more interesting. It really is a must-see in London, however, if even only to see the Rosetta stone in person, or to see the huge Grand Court (the covered courtyard in the centre, a recent addition).
The Grand Court, to the British Museum what IM Peis glass pyramids are to the Louvre. Beautiful
Ancient stone lion - isnt he a cutie?
The British Museum is famous for being one of the largest collections of “borrowed” artefacts in the world (I think the Louvre would have to be the best). Very little of the collection are actually British – it’s mostly Egyptian and Middle Eastern artefacts somewhat controversially removed from Egypt during the 19th century.
The Egyptian exhibits at the British Museum are amongst the best in the world.
Famous brass cat statue.
Lely's Venus.
Roman gold leaf jewellery - magnificient, hey?
A somewhat spooky bust of - I think - Caesar.
Cameos carved from gemstones.
Reliquary for one of the thorns from the crown of thorns.
There are better reliquaries (a gilded container designed to hold a relic, a religiously significant artefact, which is usually the body parts, or other pieces, associated with certain saints and religious figures) to be seen in Munich (skulls, finger bones, all gruesome and wonderful), the British Museum’s sole one is probably trumps in ’significance’ – supposedly it’s one of the thorns from Jesus’ Crown of Thorns. Wonderful Catholic twaddle, but the reliquary itself is pretty cool; check out the dead rising from their coffins in its base:
Rise! Rise my pretties!
Random porcelain decoration which I cant remember what from, but it was bizarre.
- The famed Crystal Skull (of Indiana Jones fame), originally believed to be Mayan, but later proven to be a 19th century forgery.
Grrr....
If you do visit, check out the North/South American, Pacific and African artefacts (particularly the African) as they’re much more fascinating and relevant (well, I found this to be so: I’ve been to the Pergammon in Berlin, the Vatican in Rome, the Louvre – of course – in Paris and the Museum of Natural History in New York: I am over Egyptian and Classical artefacts.)
I forget the culture these great mannequins came from - I think it was South American.
South American (?) mannequins.
My personal favourites at the museum where the following three turquoise pieces which I think were Mayan and the African pieces created out of decomissioned weapons.
A must see - one of three Mayan turquoise pieces that are absolutely amazing. Get up close and look at the detail, it is incredible. Apparently it was a chest plate decoration. It is about 2/3 of a metre wide.
Detail of snake.
Turquoise Mayan mask.
Mayan chimpanzee mask.
My apologies if these are not Mayan but some other South American culture – I didn’t actually check, though I’m pretty sure the room they were in represented Mayan arts.
African art using decomissioned weapons. This is the tree of life.
This one reminded me of Jabberwocky (the Terry Gilliam movie, not the character in Alice in Wonderland), and the Bunyip at Murray Bridge.
Birds made from pieces of gun.
The African room also includes information and documentaries about the decommissioning of machine guns in certain African countries, where the materials for these pieces are derived from. I admired these works because they represent the feel and spirit of native African art, but incorporate the interference of Western culture onto their society, in the use of the decommissioned weapons. The most important thing I took away was that none of these weapons – which had each killed African civilians – were manufactured in Africa. It reminds us Westerners of our continued responsibility for the difficulties faced by Africa.
Statue Philia at the British Museum
However, at the moment, the main thing to check out at the British Museum are the incredible pieces of modern art that are dotted around the buildings. I’m not usually much of a fan of modern art, but sometimes there are things that are destined to be classics, the meanings and interpretations of which are enough to fascinate even ordinary people. I’ve always thought that a person shouldn’t need an arts degree to appreciate art, and if an arts degree is necessary, then it just isn’t great art. I had to fight through crowds of people to see these pieces, which held many transfixed.
They’re part of the British Museum’s Statue Philia exhibition which will run until the 25th of January.
‘Siren’ by Marc Quinn is the one gaining most media coverage. It’s a solid gold statue of Kate Moss, but intended to remind us of ancient Greek art, with Moss as a modern Aphrodite. Besides being genuinely confronting to look at initially, it’s fascinating to see the level of detail at different angles, much as you would at Michaelangelo’s David. It was positioned in comparison to Lely’s Venus (which I took a photo of above).
Marc Quinn's Siren.
Then there’s Ron Mueck’s Mask II. This was the hardest to get a photo of, as every man, woman and child was clustered around it in wonder. Check it out, plopped next to the statue from Easter Island (Hoa Hakanai’a); gives you an idea of the scale. It’s his own face, by the way.
Ron Muecks Mask II next to the Rapa Nui statue.
Ron Mueck's Mask II. It's about two metres long, a metre high. Incredible, hey?
Tim Noble and Sue Webster's Dark Stuff.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s Dark Stuff was my favourite piece from this group: in the Egyptian section, these silhouettes are constructed from bundles of mummified animals. When light is cast at a particular angle, we see they represent a man and a woman’s face (actually, the artist’s faces). It’s intended to be a reflection of attitudes to ‘life and death’ and ‘grotesque and beauty’, but really, it’s Noble and Webster’s connecting Egyptian mummification with the ‘presents’ their cat brought home. I loved it: how gruesome, yet so gorgeous!
Front View
Another Modern piece which I think is more permanent – and not part of the exhibition – is Cradle to The Grave by Pharmacopoeia. Basically, a doctor and a couple of artists calculated how many drugs the average man and woman takes in their life, then stitched them chronologically into netting, representing the dependence on medication of our culture. It was fascinating to start at one end, and try to identify the drugs taken at different ages – from aspirin to contraception to chemotherapy and blood pressure pills.
The pills sewn into the netting.
The netting is housed in a glass table which you walk along, reading about the changes in health of the woman and the man.
Fascinating concept. I recognised a couple of the pills 
! I think that was the intended effect; I wonder how much Levlen has come and gone through my own body since I started on it in the late 90’s?
Other adventures in London.
Park near Leicester square, I think.
Cage Aux Folles, at the Playhouse.
I spent a bit of time wandering around: I knew I’d return to the UK at least once more during my trip here, so I wasn’t too worried about seeing ‘everything’.
You know I’m a musical buff, and I couldn’t go past seeing at least one show, so I saw La Cage Aux Folles (it’s based on the same stageplay which ‘The Birdcage‘ and the French ‘La Cage Aux Folles‘ films are based on.) It was funny, but as gay-themed musicals go, Priscilla kicks its arse (hey, this one didn’t have a huge bus that hangs out over the audience
London eye at night.
Camden Market.
It is rather overpriced and overtouristed, but Camden Market was excellent. I hadn’t see such wonderful general alternativeness since coming to France (even the Emos are conservative here), so I felt right at home amongst the punks and fat American tourists wandering around here. The stalls in the Stables Market were better than those on the main street, though my favourite was in the two storey building next to the lock (Spittlefields? I forget the name of the building). Something fun: a bunch of kids in an old boat came through the lock while I had my lunch, it was great watching them operate the seriously old skool lock: no electricity here, all levers and cogs.
Best meal in London.
I ate on the cheap, had a pub meal at my hostel that was rather decent, and had scones at the British Museum. The best though was the mulled wine and irish stew I had at a little booth in Camden Market. It was f u c k i n g freezing, but the wine warmed me up pretty quick.
Yay for Gumboots! Or Wellies, if you must.
There were some seriously original stuff here. In the end I only bought a bag (a red canvas one that is the right size for a teachers bag), but I had wanted to buy heaps more junk. I had to keep reminding myself I’m too old (and too teachery) to be a neo-punk.
Obligatory photo of old London.
I did do a free tour of old London, saw all the sites again, but to tell you the truth the photos I took on my one solitary day in transit back in 2005, when the sun was out, are far better, so I didn’t bother taking many.
See, much nicer weather back in 05. Apparently they're going to have the beach volleyball in that parade ground in 2012.
So, the weather was pretty terrible, but considering I left Lille in -2degree weather and arrived in 5 degree weather, I thought I actually did pretty well (though I ended up being boiling in my snow jacket). It just rained heavily and was generally miserable.
So, back in Lille.
Riots at Baggio, continued.
I had thought that perhaps I would do a full 10 hour working week for my last of the year, but alas, due to the fiery temperament of some of Baggio’s students (see previous entry). The riots and demonstrations from Friday, Monday and Tuesday have continued all week. I had three classes today (Thursday) and not one student turned up to any one of them. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have some students in my one sole class.
Meanwhile, out the front this morning, I think the kids got cold and decided to sacrifice a wheelie bin:
Two fires today - to the left and to the right. Most kids just went home when they saw the barricades, rather than climbing over fences like they did on Tuesday.
And the poor troubled bus shelter from before had one more of its windows smashed. Oh well, at least there weren’t any riot police this time around.
Apparently there are similar – though less violent – demonstrations in Lens and Nantes. Meanwhile, the newspapers here are quite bored with it, and have moved on to panic about the latest foiled ‘terrorist’ attack in the Printemps department store in Paris. The first I heard about that was the Australian government’s smarttraveller bulletin warning us about increased terrorist activities in France. Riots, terrorist attacks, god what a dangerous country France is 
Anyway, it’s not as dangerous as Denmark at the moment, according to smarttraveller.
Movies, Books.
Haven’t bothered with too much of a social life here, so my spare time is mostly filled with travel, media and studying French. I’ve been watching a lot of films/tv shows and reading a lot of books I’ve been wanting to see but didn’t have time to during Uni. With books I usually listen to the audiobooks, originally because it gave my dodgy eyes a rest, but now because I can walk down a street effectively ‘reading’ a book without bumping into people. Walking the 40mins home from work, listening to my audiobooks, has become my main hobby (when it’s not raining, that is). In this way I suffered through the whole Twilight series – bizarrely engrossing and addictive but frustratingly impatiently dull. The movies are going to be better.
I can’t believe it – Survivor is heading into its 18th season. When did that happen? I still remember that fat Richard guy backstabbing his way to too much money.
Quantum of Solace was just incredibly dull. I’m so disappointed; loved Casino Royale. Daniel Craig’s still pretty decent despite the battering he takes, but there just wasn’t any story; it seemed like a collection of randomly ordered action sequences. I found myself going off to make a tea half way through, knitting my scarf, and doing some Iceland research, while it ran in the background. It’s not often a movie bores me that much. Oh well.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is shaping up to be a nice pleasant read, though compared with Persepolis and Osama, which explore similar concepts, it seems a little tame (well, Kite Runner was quite tame also). It will do well as a film though, so looking forward to that.
Just watched Wesele (‘The Wedding’) again: a Polish film I saw at a couchhost’s place. It’s the Polish The Castle, I swear, involving lots of sleaze, sarcasm and vodka. I love it. I’m sending it to everyone I think will like it. I cracked up all over again.
Wishing you all …
a joyeux noel. I’m heading out and about on Sunday, won’t be home till early January. Bizarrely for someone who doesn’t like the cold, and is complaining about Lille’s frosty weather, I’m heading to Iceland for New Years. Yeah, I know, incredibly bizarre. But hey, I get to see the Northern Lights and walk on a glacier. And maybe see an arctic fox, man are they cuties. And there will be plenty of alcohol invovled, no fear.
Speaking of alcohol, have a look at this bottle I bought from the local Hypermarche (super-supermarket):
Cascastel Seigneurie d'Arse, 2005. A fine vintage.
Yes, it is a bottle of wine from the Lordship of Arse estate. You’d think that winemakers in a country where the English speaking rate is quite high, and which is right next to the UK, would know better. Actually, it was really nice wine for the price (about $7) so I’m going back to get more.
Mum, if you’re reading this, look after Lily, no matter how much she annoys you. Everyone else, have a good vacation, and think of me in subzero temperatures while you’re enjoying mild South Australian weather of around 30 degrees in shorts and t-shirts. Best wishes for a happy new year, see/hear from you soon.
Reading: Breaking Dawn, last in the Twilight series. The first half of it is the best of the whole series; the last half is just as dull as the rest. To be followed by a little bit of literature, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner.
Watching: Saying farewell to Dexter, Heroes and Californication for the year. Just starting on Battlestar Galactica as the webisodes make their appearance. Also, La Cage Aux Folles, as in the musical, based on the French 70’s film, which I saw from the cheapseats in London; you may know it by it’s American remake, The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams. I also rewatched Wesele (The Wedding), a hilarious Polish film, which I saw while staying with a couchhost in Paris.
I went over to the UK for the weekend, but more interesting things have been going on since I returned.
Monday I arrived back at 5am (overnight bus), and was glad to slump into bed after sending a quick email to the colleague whose class I’d been planning to attend that day, telling her I was too tired. When I woke, her responding email told me it was no problem that I’d not been able to make it: students had rioted outside my school, set a car on fire, destroyed a bus shelter, and prevented her students from attending the class in question.
Meanwhile, today (Tuesday), I had to convince security guards in poor French that, indeed, I was a teacher (despite the frayed jeans and lack of a leather satchel), and that they could let me through the barricades while students behind me set fire to newspapers and tyres. Later on the riot police turned up, arrested some teenagers, and effectively cancelled the rest of my classes that morning.
So, what’s going on? France’s education minister, fueled by Sarkozy’s fervent desire for reform, has been redesigning the secondary level education system. Basically, France currently has a general competitive exam (the BAC), 8am-6pm days for students, with compulsory core subjects, like the Americans; the new reform would make the system more similar to the British and Australian systems where exams are specific to the subject (A-Levels, Year 12 subjects), choices are more flexible, the year is split into 2 semestres instead of 3 terms, and there are fewer compulsory subjects.
Without knowing too much about it, and biased by my own experiences, I don’t see the issue with the reforms – they seem to be a long time coming (the 8am-6pm days my secondary and tertiary students endure are ludicrously long, and out of step with the rest of the French ideal to working to live as opposed to living to work; and increased flexibility, choice and specialisation is always a good thing). But the teachers and students here are violently concerned about the consequences of these reforms, so there must be more to it.
Around the country, teachers – and students – have been protesting and demonstrating against the reforms. It meant nothing to me other than an occasional free class to listen to my audiobooks and wander around the grounds of Lycee Cesar Baggio (lycee = high school, the school I’m stationed at).
However, some students of Baggio decided they wanted to, well, get out of class and burn some shit up, and they did just that. I’d arrived last Friday to see steaming bitumen and Lille council workers cleaning the pavement of burning newspapers. I learnt later they were cleaning up the remains of several melted wheelie bins that had been set alight. The teacher I worked with, Francois, told me there’d been some excitement before I’d arrived. Rushing off to catch my bus after the lesson, I’d thought nothing more of it, until her email on Monday afternoon.
So, Tuesday, I turned up, early for once, to find a crowd of violent teenagers refusing students and teachers entry through the gates, having barricaded them with stolen chicken wire fences. A young female student tried to enter while I stood there, and was almost squashed behind the chicken wire; I could see the deputy proviseur (deputy principal) standing anxious behind a line of security guards through the fences. I figured out how to get in – through another entrance which was letting in teachers only. That morning, only three students attended my first class (they all were Baggio boarders, who lived on the school premises, and were not permitted to leave). The remaining two classes for that morning, no others made it through.
I spent the other two classes I had that morning standing in the staffroom watching the riot police clean up the kids. My colleagues seemed more concerned that the riot police had appeared – as Rene explained, when the riot police turn up, you know it’s bad, and that civil liberties are going to be thrown out the window.
When I left (no students turned up to my other classes, so I left early) I saw more students being arrested by the police, saw the smashed bus shelter, the scorch marks from yesterday’s burnt car, and smelt the stench of burnt plastic.
Tuesdays I work a split shift. I came back in the afternoon, to find everything back as normal. My afternoon classes went as normal, only the main topic of conversation was the riots. One student told me she’d climbed over a wall to enter, to avoid the students who had barricaded the front entrance. The others told me they didn’t think much of the element who’d incited the riot. It was all very interesting.
Mostly, it is the opinion of teachers and students here that the kids who incited the riot were just looking for trouble, and used the reforms as an excuse. Baggio is in a low-socioeconomic area; it’s a technical lycee, somewhat an equivalent of a TAFE college, where students learn a trade alongside a general education in Maths, Science and English. Most students are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Kids in these areas are not exactly the biggest fans of Sarkozy (French president) and Darcos (the minister of education), and they’d taken this oppourtunity to set stuff alight. However, to their defense, there are some protestors that genuinely believe the reforms are to the detriment of future generations: essentially, like all governments, Sarkozy’s is only interested in cutting back the budget, which the reforms would allow.
So, anyway, La Voix Du Nord, the local Nord newspaper, took some pretty wicked pictures, which I have reproduced here totally without authorisation (but for the benefit of my non-French speaking friends), but you can see them in the original context here:
http://photos.lavoix.com/main.php?g2_itemId=67024
In the background, that’s the metro (train) line running in the background, and the school I work at.
Okay, there’s a kicker about this poor bus shelter. Notice that the middle panel has been busted. Look later.
This is the bus shelter across the road. The one you saw before had the middle panel knocked out, remember? Wait for it.
There it is, my school - Lycee Cesar Baggio - with the fires in front of it.
When I went back this afternoon, I took a few photos of the aftermath.
Heres the bus shelter you first saw (the second is actually across the road). Yep, they fixed the middle glass on Monday – and then the next morning, the students destroyed the other two panels. I fully expect to see it fully fixed when I go past on Thursday. Hows that for efficiency?
Scorch marks from the burning car.
Remains of the burning tyres.
Scorchmarks on the previously barricaded gates.
“Lille, Athens, long live the riot”.
Many mentioned to me the connection between this riot and that which is happening in Greece at the moment. Apparently these students have been ‘inspired’ by them. It seems the disadvantaged are quite happy anywhere in the world to show the authorities what the mob can do.
So, anyway, this is my first experience of French revolutionism. Rene had been concerned that this was the image of France that me, as a foreigner, had been given. I assured him that actually it was pretty exciting, and interesting to see! How very French to witness a riot. Come on, there’s nothing better.
There were a few other students getting their riot on in several other areas nearby, only we took the cake: at Henin Beaumont, Armentieres, Wattrelos and Behal.
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Artois/2008/12/16/article_importante-mobilisation-lyc-eacute-enne.shtml
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Metropole_Lilloise/2008/12/16/article_les-lyc-eacute-ens-mobilis-eacute-s-agra.shtml
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Metropole_Lilloise/2008/12/16/article_wattrelos-une-voiture-incendiee-devant-l.shtml
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Artois/2008/12/15/article_lens-le-lyc-eacute-e-b-eacute-hal-occup.shtml
My last students of the day, all high level in English and very political, told me all about the motivations behind the riots, and the history of some of France’s more recent more impressive demonstrations. Apparently similar demonstrations of a few years back were prompted by an industrial relations law. This resembled Howard’s WorkChoices, where young workers were stripped of their rights to unfair dismissal. The resulting demonstrations paralysed the education system for a month. They also spoke about another riot, back in the 60’s, where the whole country was shutdown for three months (I remember seeing The Dreamers – excellent, though disturbing, movie by the way – so this one rang a bell).
I told them about the biggest protest I could remember of my time – the protest against Howard’s sending our troops to Iraq – and how the government (or, at least, John Howard) ignored us, although 10,000 people protested in Adelaide alone. My students told me we should consider burning a few cars – maybe the government would listen to us then. I gotta say – he’s gotta point.
So you guys back home who are demonstrating against the government for better wages for teachers: take some French advice, step it up a bit. What’s one less Range-Rover?*
*Of course, you would be ecologically sensible and burn the biggest car you can find. Just ignore the greenhouse gases – it’s all for the greater good .
Stories about the riots at Cesar Baggio over the last few days, all in French, unfortunately:
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Metropole_Lilloise/2008/12/16/article_lille-nouveaux-incidents-au-lyc-eacute-e.shtml
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Metropole_Lilloise/2008/12/15/article_lille-500-lyc-eacute-ens-dans-les-rues-c.shtml
http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/actualite/L_info_en_continu/Metropole_Lilloise/2008/12/15/article_lille-incidents-au-lyc-eacute-e-baggio.shtml
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Reading: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (a little bit of tacky vampire-ness which is the inspiration new Alan Ball series True Blood); Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (but, the more I read it, the more I’m sure I’ve read it before).
Watching: True Blood (Alan Ball created my favourite TV series of all time, Six Feet Under, and this is his newey – it’s a more grown up version of Buffy or Twilight, but still quite silly; it stars Anna Paquin, of Piano and X-Men fame. If you’re not expecting much, it’s quite good.); Heroes, of course; and Mad Men, a big hitter in this year’s Emmys, is brilliant – it’s a drama set in the high-strung world of Manhattan advertising in the late 50’s to early 60’s).
Doing: Knitting a scarf and a pair of socks; drinking Beaujolais Nouveau, a fruity, watery red wine that causes excitement every November amongst the French, but I just drink it because it tastes nice – and isn’t as nasty as some of the ‘award winning’ French wines (which could fill a goon bag no problem); overcoming a serious addiction to TV series – I don’t think I could survive without my Hiro or Dexter.
Back in Adelaide, while I hide out overseas, my uni-mates are protesting, striking and marching all in hope of fair pay as teachers. I come from a family which doesn’t respect teachers (which makes it even more hilarious that I became one), so I do hear a bit of ‘they’re lazy, they have more holidays than everyone, get over it, they’re paid more than the average person, what are they complaining about’. The attitude at home has changed a bit, however, with the latest round of strike action – the government ruled the education union’s last strike illegal at 9pm the night before, causing chaos the following day as all teachers arrived at school with nothing to teach, and only a third of the students turning up. People are starting to become aware that a) teachers in SA are the lowest paid in the country and b) the government (including the increasingly unpopular Premier, Mike Rann) are doing some nasty shit to get out of paying them a fair wage. Or at least, that is how it’s seeming.
Education’s been deplorable in Australia since the Howard government took office and decided that the lower classes didn’t deserve the same oppourtunities as the middle and upper classes (because, hey, who’s going to work our factories, orchards, and shops if everyone becomes educated?), and I admit, there are a good array of teachers who, after years of overwork and low salaries, have simply given up and are hanging in until retirement. But there are plenty who, inspired by a need to make a change where it matters most, still do give it their all, and they’re in the majority. Does 60 hour weeks, with additional hours spent at home, with constant verbal and physical abuse from students and parents, after a minimum of four years (but more likely 5 or 6 years) of university study for about the same salary as an unskilled factory worker sound like an attractive job/career for anyone?
So anyway, I think a lot about the reputation that teachers have, and how they are not taken seriously – by the working or middle classes – mostly because I am one, and I’m very tired of being told it’s a secure, well paid glorified babysitting job with lots of holidays.
Part of this is because I sense many people think of teaching as it was presented in The Simpsons - take away the ‘Teachers Guide’ and we’d be lost – that teaching can be done straight out of a book. Admittedly, this was the case in Japan where thousands of human-harddrives are trained every year – god knows what those teachers thought they were doing, but it wasn’t teaching and those kids certainly weren’t learning.
Back on Facebook, some of my uni-mates have complained about how the teacher’s union isn’t doing a good enough job in terms of PR – I agree with them, in that if the public had any idea how difficult the job is, perhaps they’d be more sympathetic towards our strike actions.
So I was glad to see the following article. Teachers haven’t been ‘fact-transmitters’ for several years now; well, at least in South Australia. It’s definitely more important to teach students to evaluate for themselves the implications and issues of Nazism and fascism than a list of useless dates of battles and events. Yet, there’s still so much push for a return to history and English teaching methods of the 1950’s in the public – and the government – because they themselves simply haven’t figured out that kids today don’t need these ridiculous lists of dates, figures, facts that was taught when they themseves were students. Hell, it can even be argued that kids in the fifties didn’t need to learn poems by heart, grammar and figures then.
Here’s the article – and here’s for making people realise that teaching methodology has changed; now kids are actually learning instead of just memorising. The next step is for people to realise that teaching learning is complex, requires high levels of skills, and far more difficult than teaching facts. And that the job of teachers is a lot more difficult than many give credit for.
Google generation doesn’t need rote learning
NEWS.com.au
December 02, 2008 02:38pm
Morgan Pozgar, 13, of Pennsylvania, competes in the National Texting Championship in New York last year / AFP
|
- “Industrial age” education system
- Kids don’t need it, says expert
- Digital immersion good for them
SCHOOL children no longer need to memorise facts and figures because everything they need is just a mouse click away, an internet educator says.
It would be better to teach children to think creatively so they could interpret and apply knowledge they gained online, said Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling book Wikinomics and a champion of the “net generation”.
“Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is,” Mr Tapscott told Times Online.
“Kids should learn about history to understand the world and why things are the way they are. But they don’t need to know all the dates. It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorise that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google,” he said.
But Mr Tapscott said he was not rejecting education.
The ability to learn new things was more important than ever “in a world where you have to process new information at lightning speed,” he said.
“Children are going to have to reinvent their knowledge base multiple times. So for them memorising facts and figures is a waste of time.”
Mr Tapscott, who coined the term “the net generation”, based his observations in his latest book, Grown Up Digital, on a study of nearly 8000 people in 12 countries born between 1978 and 1994.
He said the prevailing education model was designed for the industrial age.
“This might have been good for the mass production economy, but it doesn’t deliver for the challenges of the digital economy, or for the ‘net gen’ mind,” he said.
He suggested the brains of young people worked differently from those of their parents and said “digital immersion”, in which children may be texting while surfing the internet and listening to their MP3 player, could help them to develop critical thinking skills.
Brighton College headmaster Richard Cairns told Times Online that a core level of knowledge was essential:
“It’s important that children learn facts. If you have no store of knowledge in your head to draw from, you cannot easily engage in discussions or make informed decisions.”
(Read More)
Dimarie of Townsville